3rd September 2025
The job of a constitution is to regulate fundamental political conflicts – and those conflicts will still be there when a constitution is trashed
Like a tango, it takes two to start a civil war.
If the aggression of one ‘side’ is not met by resistance of the other ‘side’, then you may have many things – repression, tyranny – but you will not have a civil war.
At the moment, the illiberals in the United States seem to be having it one way: authoritarian commands and extreme measures mount up every day.
The main opposition party – the Democrats – seem to caught out and off-guard by each move – at least on the national level.
And so we have the sound of one hand slapping.
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The illiberals may assume that they will always have it so easy – that they can act with impunity with no consequence.
(And hubris of illiberals has often been the best protection against illiberalism.)
But.
There can be a point where even the liberals turn.
And if that is the case, then we may shift from a one-sided onslaught to some form of civil conflict.
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Usually fundamental political disputes can be resolved, well, politically.
That is the primary job of constitutions: to regulate political tensions.
But when constitutional arrangements are not working then political tensions cannot easily be resolved politically.
And the trashing of the United States constitution by Trump and his supporters and appointees mean that political opposition may have to find another way.
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This is why reneging on constitutional arrangements is playing with fire.
For fundamental political tensions will still exist. They don’t go away.
Nobody knows if civil conflict will start in US.
But what is happening now is certainly one way how a civil war could start.
The breakdown of constitutional mechanisms to resolve tensions, leading to use of coercive and even lethal force by both ‘sides’.
So sadly civil conflict is one foreseeable outcome of the current escalations, regarding Chicago and elsewhere.
Brace brace.
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‘Nobody knows if civil conflict will start in US. But what is happening now is certainly one way in which a civil war could start. The breakdown of constitutional mechanisms to resolve tensions, leading to use of coercive and even lethal force by both “sides”.’
Yes, but up to now civil wars – from many centuries – have involved countries with more or less equality of access to conventional weapons. What happens when one ‘side’ has nuclear weapons?…
As always, in the US, one looks to the countervailing power principle for protection from the abyss. In theory (as I understand it) any one of the President, Congress and the Supreme Court can block either or both of the other two from going too far off the rails. But if all three are of one mind then the operating assumption is that the direction in question must be the right one (which, after all, it is for most minor issues).
In effect we are back to the old question of whether a democracy can legitimately transform itself into some other form like a dictatorship. Or, as Ben Franklin is said to have observed “this [form of government] can only end in despotism … when the people have become so corrupted as to need despotic government.” Are we nearly there yet?
I don’t think a civil war is immediately likely, because there is no balance of power.
In Sudan, for instance, there are two military institutions that are both capable of fighting each other (though probably neither capable, at the moment, of defeating the other).
In Ethiopia, the fine balance between different groups – and particularly between the Tigray and the government in Addis Ababa – deliberately kept it possible to for a powerful group to resist a government that opposes the balance.
But I don’t see this in the US. Where is the power that can take on the (immense, and immensely powerful) US military? Who is the ‘other side’ in this hypothetical civil war?
Surely civil war proper would require the country’s security forces to fracture?
I understand that the US military swear an oath of loyalty to the constitution, not to the president. In those circumstances I should think it inevitable that some elements will (eventually) oppose unconstitutional orders, and that fracturing will occur.
And in light of David Burrows’ comment above, it seems at least likely that then *both* sides would have nukes.
We live in strange times when a British Prime Minister and King’s Counsellor speaks of having at his fingertips a standing army of 6,000 specialist police officers, as Sir Keir did last summer, and no one in the media comments about the wording and its significance in British history, and the President of the United States of America imposes illegal taxes on his people and uses arbitrary force against them.
I had thought Donald Trump would be cosplaying George III in next year’s 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, but now I think he will be channelling Charles I, who was quite a keen golfer.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”.
Now, if a GI trespasses on my front lawn and I exercise my right, wounding or killing her in the process, will a court say my Second Amendment right trumps my President’s arbitrary use of military force, especially when he may be accused of driving a stagecoach and horses through the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878?
(On September 2nd, 2025, Federal Judge Charles Breyer ruled that the Federal deployment of the National Guard in California violated the Posse Comitatus Act and issued an injunction against it.)
The 2nd Amendment was written when the United States was little more than a gaggle of colonies scattered across a hostile wilderness and when she certainly didn’t have a standing Army. Today, the United States has the largest, most advanced and most lethal military in the world.
However, the United States also has a “well regulated militia”. It’s called the National Guard – and it is a disciplined body of paid volunteers who give up a lot of their time and and who train to be competent in order serve their nation at home and abroad.
With rights come responsibilities… and the 2nd Amendment can’t be quoted without the part that begins, “A well-regulated Militia”. In other words, if someone wants the “right to keep and bear arms”, then they need to join a “well-regulated militia” – the National Guard – and serve when called. At least that way there is an opportunity to screen applicants and make sure they are psychologically sound before issuing them with firearms.
The 2nd Amendment is also not a blank cheque to keep or *use* firearms.
More importantly, my sense is that the 2nd Amendment is not an invincible wildcard that obviates the need for a citizen to obey all the other laws of the land. If a GI trespasses on someone’s land, the owner doesn’t have the right to shoot them unless in self-defense and they can show that they are at risk of death or serious injury. If the GI is just walking across the land-owner’s plot to cut a corner, or is lost, or doesn’t realise that the scrub land they have taken a seat on is private land, that doesn’t give the owner cart blanche to simply open fire.
And in no circumstances does the 2nd Amendment give someone the right to “shoot first and ask questions later”.
I own a car. In order to drive it, I had to pass a driving test and prove that I was a safe, sensible road-user. If I behave in a way that suggests I am no longer safe or sensible, I can lose my right to drive. My car can become a lethal weapon if I use it irresponsible. The sole purpose of a gun is to be a lethal weapon. It is what guns are designed and made for. Yet an American citizen can go and buy a gun with minimal controls, with no continuous monitoring, with no explicit mechanism that could revoke their right to own firearms.
Very clearly put and I 100% agree. The question is, would an American court and in particular the Supreme Court? Nothing I have read gives me any confidence that they would.
“The first duty of Government is to uphold the law. If it tries to bob and weave and duck around that duty when it is inconvenient, if government does that, then so will the governed, and nothing is safe – not home, not liberty, not life itself.”
Margaret Thatcher
A point lost on some of those protesting against asylum seekers in recent weeks is that by not obeying the rule of law, when it is inconvenient to them, they risk not only their homes, liberty and potentially, lives, but also the support of fellow citizens.
There has been a push back against the flag waggers and George Cross daubers in some places, because locals fear potential housebuyers may see them as evidence of anti-social behaviour rife in the neighbourhood.
What it is to live in a property owning democracy, envisaged by Thatcher, wherein most of the electorate have a material stake in where they live.
It is noticeable that there has not been any sort of significant inciting incident yet though, and it’s clearly not for want of trying. There has not been the mass riot that would justify escalation, even in Washington, and that might be frustrating for some in the Trump camp?
It’s very confusing to see them trying so many different approaches to these “not-occupations” though; it feels as though the intent is to offer so many options to the Supreme Court that they will agree to support at least one of them just to make it all go away. Which feels more like the sort of outcome that would be actually likely to lead to civil conflict.
Fwiw, I was pondering this recently. Seems to me that a civil war presupposes two relatively equally armed sides. The terrible civil war in Spain pitted most but not all of the armed forces against large leftwing armed groups and militias, but I do not see anything like this the US at present. Could there be significant mutinies within the so-called forces though?
Watching from afar, I vacillate between hopeful optimism and and pessimism.
I cannot believe the US will return to democracy and it’s former position in the world without going through civil conflict. The reason being, the current people in power will not countenance a Democratic government with the powers that the Supreme Court has handed to the Magas et al.
Optimism and hope rise when I see and read of individuals taking action in their local area. Protecting, reporting and helping other members of their communities.
I’m here mainly to applaud ‘the sound of one hand slapping’.
That said, where opposition comes from can be unpredicable. Student protest is one classic starting point, but given you mention Chicago, I understand that there are around 100,000 gang members in Chicago controlled by Colombian drug cartels. Armed and dangerous, and not only in Chicago.
I see your braces and raise you belt and braces.